


but i always thought that i'd see you again

by Haberdasher



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Character Death, Child Death, Death, Family Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Grinch References, Holidays, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, POV Original Character, Parent Death, Survivor Guilt, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22375939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haberdasher/pseuds/Haberdasher
Summary: Blair, a pessimistic and cynical Pokemon breeder, reflects upon their distaste for the holiday season, which stems from the unfortunate timing of the deaths of two immediate family members.
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	but i always thought that i'd see you again

Blair, frankly, hated the winter holiday season. They hated Christmas and New Year’s with a passion, hated that the frigid air made it hard even for Delta to keep all their eggs warm, and generally would be very much happy if the calendar excluded the entire month of December, and possibly November for good measure. 

It wasn’t about simple practicality, about disliking having to buy presents or go to family parties, because Blair didn’t have to deal with any of that. Sure, they had gotten an invite to go spend Christmas day with some cousins, but they had no intention of taking them up on the offer. Even if they wanted to trudge through the snow and ice just to see a bunch of semi-distant family members (and they didn't particularly), they had work to attend to, work that wouldn’t always allow for spur-of-the-moment trips, especially when they had rather a lot of eggs to cart around with them. 

And business was always good this time of year. Sure, the cold made it a bit trickier to keep all their Pokemon wrangled, to keep their fragile eggs nice and toasty, but around the holidays, that hard work always paid off. Lots of people wanted to give their loved ones newly-hatched Pokemon as Christmas gifts, it seemed, a desire that Blair as a breeder was all too willing to accommodate. It was a nice breather from most of their usual clientele and their less idyllic plans for the Pokemon being bred for them, really. 

No, their hatred of Christmastime spread from another source altogether, one that had little to do with the chill in the air that froze their eggs if they (or Delta) weren't careful and everything to do with a tragic event that would change Blair’s life forever happening to fall awfully close to the time of the winter holidays, tainting their perception of the holidays for the rest of their life. 

Blair’s sister, Blake, and their mother had left on their last ever poaching trip in late November, which wasn’t technically winter yet, admittedly, but that unmistakable winter chill in the air had already arrived just the same. It was early enough in the season that the two of them would undoubtedly be home in time for Christmas, but late enough that some of their catches might well end up as Christmas gifts down the line, a busy season for both poachers and breeders alike. (That, at least, hadn't changed, Blair thought to themself as they watched Delta tend to their current batch of eggs.) 

Blair and their father had seen them off as they usually did, with an unceremonial meeting in the hallway by the front door as the two were getting ready to head off on their latest expedition, the family Christmas tree visible in the background. The pair brought plenty of warm clothes for the winter weather to come, making their bags even heavier than normal, but they could handle it. They always did, after all.  
  
(Part of that, at least, was still the same. Blair was handling things the same as always, better even, now that they had Delta to warm their eggs.) 

They did some of the usual sentimental crap, hugging and wishing each other well and assuring each other that they'd be home in time for the holidays, but that wasn't the note that they left on.  
  
Blake had looked over at Blair, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, and said, "Hope you don't get _too_ badly poisoned while I'm gone."  
  
This had been before Blair had sold off most of the family breeding stock, before the eggs that they cared for were predominantly Poison-type, but there were still enough Poison-types in the mix that poisoning was a real enough danger to be considered. 

And Blair had responded, with a similar twinkle in their eye, "And I hope you don't freeze to death while you're out there."  
  
It had been just a casual comment, a joke even, the sort of humorous exchange the twins had made time and time again over the years. Normally, it would have been forgotten before the month was out... but as things turned out, it was a statement that Blair would never allow themself to forget making. 

And that was it, more or less. Blake and their mother left to go on their poaching expedition, to brave the cold in the hopes of finding some good Pokemon to sell, and Blair and their father stayed home and tended to eggs (as they still do now, they supposed, albeit with Delta helping with the eggs instead of their father), and everything seemed normal enough for a time.  
  
Blair couldn't remember, afterwards, when it mattered, if they'd actually outright said goodbye to Blake and their mother beforehand. They didn't think they did. But it seemed like just a formality at the time, how could they have known? 

The knock on the door had come on a day that had seemed ordinary enough. Blair and their father had both been tending to the eggs (perhaps some part of them would always think of that, even now, when their current batch of eggs was so far removed from those ones) when it came, and while only one of them was strictly needed to answer the door, Blair had followed their father inside, glad to get a respite from the winter chill outside.  
  
It would be rather early for Blake and their mother to be home, so Blair's initial guess was that it was some door-to-door salesman doing the rounds, not an uncommon happening around those parts. 

It didn't take long for Blair to notice that the person at the door was not, in fact, a door-to-door salesman, but instead a local police officer in full uniform. Even with this information, though, their mind leaped to the wrong conclusion, thinking that their mother and sister must have gotten busted by the police for poaching, that they must be in jail now. That would be a rough way to start the holidays, for sure, but as it turned out, that would be more pleasant than the reality of the situation, one that would ruin not only that holiday season but every one in the years to come. 

The police officer spoke only to Blair's dad at first, not directly to them, and he spoke quietly enough that Blair couldn't make out what he was saying, which Blair initially thought was him being unintentionally rude but later figured was him trying to spare a child from hearing gory details about the fate of their relatives shortly before the holidays.  
  
Over the months and years that followed, Blair went back and forth between thinking that the police officer was in the right to do this and thinking that they should have just broken the news to both of them at the same time, gory details and all. It's not like they wouldn't find out eventually anyway, and they weren't _that_ young at the time... 

Whatever Blair thought of it in hindsight, whether the police officer was right or wrong, he left before speaking to Blair in person, leaving their father, newly grieving, with the task of explaining what had happened to his child.  
  
"What was that about?" Blair had asked, still largely clinging to the theory that their mother and sister were rotting in Caecus jail right now.  
  
It took a moment for Blair's father to summon the courage to respond.  
  
"You know how Blake and your mom were supposed to be home in time for Christmas?"  
  
Blair had nodded, still not realizing what their father was getting at; surely a mere poaching charge would come with a reasonable bail amount, right? 

"Well, uh, sweetheart-"  
  
That was enough to set Blair on edge a little; their father didn't use the term "sweetheart" on them often, and when he did it was usually either to make a point or a vain attempt to soften harsher speech to follow.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"They're not going to be home for Christmas, Blair. They're... they're not coming home at all."  
  
The words hung in the air for a long, silent moment as the reality that Blair's father was dancing around began to sink in. 

It took longer than it should have for Blair to realize what their father was getting at; even now, they'd look back at their past self and wonder how they could have been so naive, how they could have not known of the cruelties that the world would deal out without warning or apology. To their credit, they _did_ put the pieces together eventually, realizing that what their father was referring to was a much graver problem than mere arrests.  
  
"What... what happened to them?" 

Blair's father took a deep breath and let it out before replying.  
  
"Well, they don't know the full story, it sounds like... but a hiker out on the Bends found them. They think a wild Pokemon must have attacked, caught them off-guard so they had no time to get out their own Pokemon before it was too late..."  
  
Blair wasn't sure they bought it. Blake and their mother had been to the Bends time and time again; they knew the risks, knew the dangers, knew what precautions to take to avoid the worst of it. If they _had_ been caught off-guard by a Pokemon attack, there was no way to be sure that the attacking Pokemon was _wild_...  
  
...man, they really wished they could've talked to that police officer before he'd decided to abscond. 

Blair's father started crying before they did. Part of them saw that as weakness on his part, that he was the first to break down, not able to last as long as someone who wasn't even technically an adult yet. But part of them understood. Part of them knew his world was falling apart just like theirs was, even if they had different means of coping with it, different ways of putting together the pieces.  
  
On that night, a few days before Christmas, Blair and their father hugged and cried and grieved for all that they had lost, for all that would have to change on a moment's notice. 

The next few weeks, during a time that was supposed to be filled with festivity and cheer, were filled with a series of entirely different emotions that all seemed to blur together just as the days themselves did.  
  
Sadness and grief, of course. Anger, at whoever had killed Blake and their mother, at the police for not investigating further. Guilt, for possibly jinxing their final outing, for not sending them off with a proper farewell, for not doing more to help keep them safe, for living when they no longer did. 

Breeding helped a little. Going through the motions, doing the same tasks they'd done day in and day out before... maybe that's why they'd hung onto it, kept working as a breeder and caring for eggs even to this day rather than seeking out a different profession. It was something they'd done before the worst happened, something familiar, something they could fix their mind on instead of focusing on everything else they had to deal with. 

But breeding could only do so much. Caring for eggs, eggs that were destined to end up owned by another, was no replacement for a mother, for a sister, and, eventually, for a father.  
  
(That last loss wasn't during the holiday season, but it was still technically winter at the time, further souring Blair on the season as a whole.)  
  
And funerals were certainly no replacement for the family's usual holiday celebrations... 

Since then, Blair has loathed the holiday season. Where others see festivity and bonding and bliss, Blair sees funerals and a police officer breaking the worst news imaginable. Tending to eggs helps distract them a little, but only so much.  
  
If hating Christmas makes them a grinch, well, so be it. They'd rather be a grinch than pretend to enjoy something that makes their heart ache. 


End file.
